Origin of the name "Castanea delle Furie"
paolo.pisanu - CC3.0
The name "Castanea delle Furie" is linked to the presence in the territory of chestnut trees and to its particular geographical location.
The name "Castanea" derives from the Latin and indicates the name of the plant and the fruit of the chestnut, "Castanea Sativa". The chestnut tree, known in popular and peasant culture as "bread tree", for the village of Castanea delle Furie represented an important sustenance for the farmers who ate the fruit, synthesized natural medicines, used it for the tanning the skins, they obtained firewood and flour for the bread dough.
According to another hypothesis the name "Castanea" could derive from the homonymous place in Greece, in fact in Thessaly there is a village with the name " Kastania ". These terms could perhaps date back to the historical period linked to the foundation and colonization of Messina and its surroundings or to the subsequent epoch of the prolific spread of Basilian monasticism along the offshoots of the Peloritani mountains. These religious would have used a word of their mother tongue to classify the spontaneous vegetation of the district.
The name "delle Furie" does not derive from the well-known windiness of the place, but associated with Castanea to indicate its particular peripheral position with respect to the city of Messina: in the territory of Castanea there were several hamlets, called "furie" ", located outside the confines of the city of Messina and yet under its administration.
According to another hypothesis, the appellative" of the furies "could derive from the name of the Roman centurion Massimo Manio Furio who during the first Punic war, having operated brilliantly on the territory, he had acquired a good part of it. The area would therefore have been remembered over time as the land of the furii, that is, the land of the descendants of Furio.
